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"Subterfuge"Written By: Switchblade003
Disclaimer: Shit. Ya’ll know Gundam ain’t
mine! If it were, Trowa’s pants wouldn’t’a been so
damned tight. His sperm are gaggin’! Warning(s): This is my return to the fanfiction
community, so go easy on me? Heh, no, I’m just kiddin’.
Go crazy! Rip me a new one! God only knows that I deserve it after
leavin’ ya’ll for three months… Rating: R, for violence, language, and author
designation. I said so, dammit! It’s my fic; I’ll do what
I want! Archive: None, right now. Hopefully Dians will
put it up at Wuffie.Net. Notes: Well, I try to write about points in the
series that most ignore. This is another one. I took some liberty
with the storyline from "Blind Target." I apologize. It’s
a kinda prequel to my other fic "Blind Target." Parts of
this are loosely based on lines from "Fight Club," my favorite
movie—specifically where the narrator beats the shit out of that
blonde guy: "I wanted to put a bullet between the eyes of every
panda that wouldn’t fuck to save its species, I wanted to breathe
fire. I wanted to destroy something beautiful." Status: Complete, never revised (Oct. 2003). +++ Subterfuge
At least, I honestly thought he was dead. Either way, it shocked me that such an inevitable event,
something that I’d been bracing myself for the entire duration
of the war, could turn my heart inside out and shatter all of my logic,
my self-control. It was the first time in my life that I killed out of
sheer hatred, anger, and every other selfish, reckless emotion unleashed
from Pandora’s box. Ralph Kurt showed up at the circus grounds unannounced
and uninvited that day, but that’s always been his style. We
were mercenaries, and surprise appearances were our specialty, so
when I did find him—or rather, he found me—it was almost
acceptable. I was cautious. When he demanded that I hand over my Gundam
due to my lack of aggression, however, the circumstances changed;
I was agitated. When Catherine came barreling out of the tents, screaming
to me that Quatre’s conference hall had been annihilated, I saw
red. Quatre Raberba Winner had always been the backbone of
our group missions. In the final days of the war, when we truly believed
that Zechs Merquise would drop Libra onto the Earth and that we were
powerless to stop him, that idealistic and humanist compassion of
Quatre’s was too stubborn to allow him to quit fighting, and
I think that it was his immortal naivete that kept us going. That
boy—however sheltered and truly innocent he might have been—had
effectively kept four skilled Gundam terrorists from abandoning the
cause. He was that pure, unadulterated spirit that we had all lost
somewhere along the line, and we would die trying to preserve it.
It disturbed me on some level, the influence that he had over me,
but unlike most things I succumbed to it. I’m not a leader. I generally don’t go beyond
and above the call of duty for anyone, but for Quatre I would have
flown to Hell and back. I did. I had spent months mulling over the idea of losing him,
or any of the other pilots, and I had thought that shutting down emotionally—which
isn’t very difficult for me—would be the best solution.
If I was numb I couldn’t feel the pain, the anger, the loss.
I thought that I had prepared myself for the unavoidable outcome of
years spent fighting losing battles; I thought that I could handle
losing him. God almighty, how wrong I was. The words that fell from my lips after hearing Cathy’s
screams were soft, low, almost growls and laced with venom. I asked Ralph if he had been responsible. It was an
easy mental process—If Quatre is dead, then who took him from
me? He pushed my question aside easily, as if the death
of Quatre Winner couldn’t have meant less to him, and in all
seriousness, it couldn’t have. What did Ralph care if he had
destroyed my reason for fighting, for surviving? Pilot Zero-Four was
nothing more to him than a face on the news, a statistic. He was more
to me, so much more… I wrestled with myself internally, ordered my heart to shut down, to block out, to not feel. For a moment a thought that I had succeeded, and I told Catherine that I had to leave, had to keep her out of harm’s way. For once, her protests about my departure fell on deaf
ears. I walked, off of the circus grounds, towards the industrial
section of the colony, not thinking, not feeling, just staring ahead,
just concentrating on keeping myself breathing. I walked for what
could have been minutes, hours even, and I was fine. Nothing crossed
my mind for what seemed like forever, no disparaging thoughts, no
regrets, and then I found myself standing before the enormous vidlink
monitor that loomed over the downtown business district’s park,
and there were steady images pouring in from L4, of the carnage and
destruction unleashed at what once was the conference center. I watched the names of the colony and Earth representatives
scroll down the bottom of the screen, saw the flaming ruins of the
building that had almost cemented the peace that we had worked so
hard to achieve, but when they broadcast footage of the trademark
Winner Enterprises limousine, the sleek black end of the vehicle crushed
by a rafter beam displaced during the explosion, the driver lying
deathly still beside the automobile, I lost control. A rage surged through my body that set fire to the blood
pounding in my veins. Time stood still as the charred remains of my
former partner were seared into oblivion, and every bit of rational
thought that I had ever possessed were smoking beside the corpse of
my best friend, the only person in the world I believed who had ever
truly understood me. It didn’t hurt the way I had expected it to, but
I shed no tears. I wanted blood on my hands. When I was younger I watched the mercenaries take pot-shots
at civilians on missions. They cackled and cheered each other on,
as if the act of taking an innocent human life were some kind of video
game purely for their amusement, and it sickened me. I’ve killed
hundreds if not thousands of people in my nineteen short years of
life, and I regret every one of them. As I stood in the park that day, and realized that the
last time I had seen Quatre Winner I had never thanked him for shooting
me down in the Veyate, for allowing me to pilot Zero and realize my
purpose in life, that I had never told him to quit blaming himself
for everything, to practice his major arpeggios, to cut his hair,
to stop chewing his lower lip every time he got nervous… I felt cheated. I wanted to kill for every time I had pulled my punches,
not pulled the trigger. I wanted to become evil itself that day, because
it struck me then that we were supposed to be the good guys, and the
heroes of history are always the ones who get fucked. We had lived through that God-forsaken war, maintained
our code of loyalty and ethics on the battlefield. We had fought with
as much tact and consideration as a life of mass-murder and guerilla
terrorism allots for, and the enemy had never shown us the same courtesy,
the same mercy. No one had shown Quatre that mercy. I would show my
new enemy no mercy. I remember standing so still, but inside I was dying.
His lilting alto filled my head, his brilliant, sad blue eyes clouded
my vision. He had been so awkward and scrawny-looking at out first
encounter, but I had watched him mature into the beautiful mind with
which he guided us pilots. It probably sounds like idol-worship, the awe that I
held for Sandrock’s pilot, but you have to understand that on
a soldier’s level, on a strategic level, this child—he was
fifteen by the skin of his neck—was a prodigy. He created the
ZERO system, the most technologically advanced piloting system in
the history of modern warfare, before most kids his age had mastered
negative numbers. Quatre Winner was undeniably brilliant, and what
endeared him to virtually anyone he met was how clueless and naïve
he was about his own intelligence, his own abilities as a pilot. It’s what caught my attention about him at first. And that amazing guy, the closest friend that I would
probably ever know, had been ripped violently out of my life over
a renegade crusade and a crackpot cause. When the facts feel into place in my mind I was furious.
I started walking again, struggling to keep from dropping to my knees
and screaming, letting out all of the grief and pain I had felt during
the war, fearing for his safety, promising myself never to fail in
protecting him, and then letting loose my agony at having faltered
in my pursuit. It was the kind of enraged frenzy that I had seen others
succumb to, the type that generally results in mass-murder/ suicides,
and I had fought for so long to harness the dark side of me that thirsted
for death, for the carnage and chaos of war. Quatre’s mere existence had held that leash tightly
contained within my mind for so long, but it had finally snapped.
I wanted to relief of killing out of hatred, out of spite, desired
the maniac glee that would accompany a return to my life as a killer.
If Ralph and his crazy followers could take life so carelessly, so
easily, then why couldn’t I? Maybe there was some release in
senseless bloodshed, some glory in malice-inspired slaughter. I was going to strangle Ralph Kurt to death with my
bare hands if I ever saw him, again. However, and much to his luck, it wasn’t Ralph
that I ran into that night. It was a team of his lackeys. Duo Maxwell shows up in the strangest of places, but
he often proves himself useful in dire situations. That night, as
my two shadows were beginning to close in on me, that braided idiot
jumped them from behind. Kubler-Ross’ stages of grief list denial among
things that happen to the families of the dead and dying, and we were
the closest thing to brothers that Quatre had ever known. I assumed
that he had come to L3 to confirm what he wanted to believe, that
our former leader was alive on L4, that he had somehow escaped the
blast, even though we both knew that the officials had found no survivors. So we fought the two men, each outweighing the both
of us by a hundred pounds easily, and as my adrenaline began to overtake
my rationale, I knocked the taller of the two to the ground, throwing
my elbow into his solar plexus with the weight of my entire body,
and then I started punching. Duo said that I would have killed the man, had I been
given the opportunity to continue my senseless brutality, and I believe
him, because my rage, my torment had manifested itself into a homicidal
tendency in my mind. I wanted blood for blood. I would have taken
the existence of that spineless, pathetic waste of atoms and air for
the life of my partner. Shinigami himself decided not to let me play the God
of Death, that night. I punched and kicked and clawed; I felt flesh rip under
my hands and blood soak my shirt and jeans, and it wasn’t enough.
I would have burned that man alive, just to ensure that he knew first-hand
the hellish death that had wiped Quatre Winner’s laugh from the
face of my world, but Duo dragged me off of him. He’s a lot smarter than we all give him credit
for, and he’s very perceptive. If the situation truly called
for it, he could diffuse an explosive situation like a one-man bomb
squad, and then was one of those rare instances. "Knock it off, Nanashi!" It was the name, I think, that stung more than anything,
and I stopped struggling. "I know it hurts…" he began,
but I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t need any reassurances
or commiseration. I needed retribution. Amaryllis eyes sparked with something deadly, and he
wrestled me savagely to the cold concrete of the alley. "He was
my friend, too, Trowa. I cared about him a lot—" "It can’t hurt you half as much as it’s
killing me," I protested, and Duo grit his teeth as he fought
to contain me. "There’s no reason in Hell to think that,
Tro—" was his quiet reply. I cut him off, knocked his lithe form to the ground
with a swift kick to his stomach, and stood over him, my psychotic
fury reaching climactic proportions. "You weren’t in love
with him!" I screamed, and as Duo lay stunned on the ground at
my outburst, I snatched my Glok from the waistband of my jeans and
took aim at the barely-conscious man only feet away from us. "You lost you friend," I growled, helpless
with desperate agony, punctuating my last word with a bullet to the
man’s heart. I wanted to set fire to every orphanage on L2. I wanted to breathe lightening and bleed fire. I wanted to destroy every beautiful thing in the world
that reminded me of his smile. "But I," I fired again, "lost the only
[shot] person in this fucking world [shot] who ever made me feel [shot]
anything!" I emptied the entire chamber and clip into the man’s
motionless form, and when the bullets ran out I fell to my knees,
still pulling the trigger, and the pain didn’t subside the way
I thought it would. There were no tears as Duo stood silently, dropped into
a crouch in front of me and gently pulled the gun from my trembling
hands. There was nothing. Without asking questions I followed him
to the spaceport. +++ It was quiet when we arrived at wherever it was that
Duo was taking us. I asked no questions, didn’t particularly
care where we were going. It would hurt just the same no matter where I went. I was covered in blood, my hands shaking uncontrollably,
though Duo had stolen the second man’s trench-coat to conceal
my disarray. He led me to a shuttle, nudged me inside, and what I
found there caused me to stop dead in my tracks. "Trowa!" I figured at first that it was a side-effect of the
adrenaline, or bereavement, that I saw him rushing towards me, felt
his agile frame as it impacted my torso and his slender arms were
thrown around my shoulders, but Quatre was standing before me, his
bright head pressed to my chest. My throat closed up, my eyes watered; I thought that
I might pass out, but some part of me wouldn’t allow for that,
because he was standing there and losing consciousness would mean
losing a moment with Quatre. He gasped softly and pulled back from
me suddenly, staring down at the dark crimson stains on my clothes
and now his own, and then warm hands were under my shirt, searching
for wounds that I hadn’t received in the fight. "It isn’t his," Duo reassured him darkly,
frowning as he walked past us to the shuttle’s pilot seat. He
threw himself down and stared hard at the controls, prepping the ship
for takeoff, and in the dim glow of the computer monitor’s I
could see that I’d split his lip, blackened his eye. I didn’t feel guilty. I didn’t feel anything. Quatre was still there, hands resting cautiously at
my hips, gazing up at me. His azure eyes darkened as he looked at
me, and without turning away he addressed Duo. "Whose is it?" The Deathscythe pilot chewed his split lip, winced,
then released it from between even white teeth. "One of Kurt’s
goons. He attacked me while I was lookin’ for Tro." The
braided youth finished giving the ship autopilot instructions and
swiveled the seat around to face Quatre’s back. Over the blonde’s
shoulder he glared harshly at me. "The guy pulled a gun on me, so Trowa took him
out." I knew that Quatre didn’t believe his story, because
he had that look in his eyes, that ‘human lie-detector’
expression. He was waiting for me to blink, to cave in and confess,
but I couldn’t have if I had wanted to. I was too numb. "Well," he sighed, and he sounded tired, wary,
"You should both get cleaned up while you have time. We have
work to do." Without further prompting I left the cockpit. +++ I lay awake that night in the storage hold of the shuttle,
where Duo had rigged a hammock for one of us to rest in while we switched
off piloting, arms crossed over my chest, staring up at the ceiling
of the hold. My thoughts had slowly been coming back to me, and I
felt very guilty. I felt no remorse for the man that I had shot, or for
the fact that I felt no guilt, but because I had lied to Quatre. Technically,
Duo had lied, but hadn’t done a thing to dissuade him. But after
all that had happened, I couldn’t let Quatre know that I was
capable of cold-blooded murder. The air-locked door to the cargo hold hissed open, and
I heard footsteps. I lay still, and when Quatre’s handsome face
appeared beside my resting place, I said nothing, simply locked eyes
with him and waited. After coming so close to losing him, I would have granted
him anything he would have asked me, no matter how impossible it seemed. "I want you to know something," he murmured
quietly, leaning into the hammock idly, blonde locks spilling over
his forehead and casting shadows on his elegant features. His forearms
rested across my ribcage, his hands clasped loosely on my left hipbone.
"When I woke up in the medical ward on Peacemillion, after we
destroyed Libra, you asked me what Zero had shown me, what had scared
me badly enough to blow up that colony." A self-deprecating smile took his lips. "When the
conference building exploded in front of me, I thought that I was
going to die, and the first thought I had was that I never answered
your question. I’d like to answer it now, in case I don’t
get the chance to in the future." I gazed at him silently. I had honestly forgotten that
half-drugged conversation that he had started after he woke on Peacemillion.
He had barely recognized me, he had been so sedated. "I asked Zero to show me my future, how I was going
to die, and it showed me. I saw Dorothy Catalonia spear me with that
damned lance, and that was the end." I remembered how desperate I had been to find him that
day, combing Libra’s labyrinth-like corridors in search of my
partner, and I had been terrified inside when I did find him. "So
I asked Zero if there was any way to change my fate, to trick destiny,"
he chuckled bitterly. It was a side of Quatre Winner that not many
saw. There were times when I honestly believed that he hated himself. "It showed me you." My eyebrows shot up. It wasn’t often that I showed
surprise as an expression, or any other emotion for that matter, but
Quatre has a way of coaxing it out of me. "Why did that terrify
you enough to attack me?" I asked softly, and the blonde looked
up at me, a melancholy smile on his full lips. The former Sandrock pilot leaned down over me and pressed
a gently, chaste kiss to my hair, before turning and walking back
towards the doors of the cargo hold. For a moment I thought that he
wasn’t going to answer, but he stopped, back to me, and sighed. It was a depressing sound, the kind of gesture you’d
expect from someone twice his age and with twice the life experience.
"Because I wanted nothing more than to die at Dorothy’s
hands, Trowa. I thought that humanity was inherently evil, and I wanted
no part of it. But I knew that you would never let me die. I hated
you for that, for a very long time. Now I loathe myself for being
so selfish. You killed that man because you thought that he had taken
my life." He paused. "You’re the kind of person worth
living for, Trowa Barton." +++ Continues in "Blind Target". Hey, everyone. I’m sorry that I was gone for so
long, but I’m here to stay, hopefully. I regretfully announce
here that, due to changes in my writin’ style, tone, and interests
in Gundam Wing, my previous arcs have been put on an ‘Indefinite
Suspension’ status. I may finish them, I may not. I apologize
to readers who were keeping up on them. I’ve decided to take
a more ‘Realism, Existentialism, Psychological Theologism’
route with my work. On a lighter note, my other site got torn to shit so
I’m in the process of buildin’ a new one. It’s called
‘RemixX’ and it’ll feature fiction from several different
fandoms. I’m also interested in puttin’ together a group
of writers (including myself) under one circle name (to be decided),
kinda like CLAMP but for fiction. I’d like a few visual artists
as well, because we’ll need illustrations, and I’d like
to try my hand at group writin’ (multi-author fiction). If you’re
interested, e-mail me at Swtchblde003@aol.com (it’s also my screen
name). Thanks to Cob, Usako, and ShenLong for your support,
to ReddAlice and AJ McKay for always keepin’ it professional,
and to Takaro—you always make me laugh when I need it the most.
A special thanks goes out to Fabi-chan, the most faithful reader I’ve
ever had the fortune to ensnare. Thanks, guys. PS. Jack is BACK!
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